Friday, March 21, 2008

USCL Ratings (with 2007 Final List)

I have independently created a United States Chess League rating system that takes into several elements that other rating systems do not. Most importantly, the USCL ratings take into account that players are part of a team, and their strategy about how to conclude their individual games depend on the games situations of their teammates.

Here is an overview of the USCL rating system.

1. Modified Glicko

Rating calculations are based on the Glicko system, with some minor modifications. These modifications are as follows:(a) Maximum RD is 100 (not 350);(b) Ratings are updated after every game;(c) At the end of each season, each RD is modified by increasing it 1/2 its distance to 100. For example, if a player's RD is 40, then the new RD is 40+((100-40)/2) or 40+(30) or 70. This eliminates step 1b in the Glicko process.

2. Initial Ratings Based on Board

Initial ratings for each player are based on which board they played the first time they played in a USCL match. Players who were Board 1 start with an initial rating of 2550; Board 2, 2450; Board 3, 2350; Board 4, 2250. All are set with an RD (ratings deviation) of 100.

3. Expected Score Depends on Color

Expected score from each game is modified by the color each player has. An initial investigation showed that, in the USCL, the performance rating of a player with the White pieces is about 72 points higher than the performance rating of a player with the Black pieces. Therefore, when calculating expected score of a games between two players, we temporarily add 36 points to White's rating, and subtract 36 points from Black's rating.

4. All Games Rated with Equal Weight

All games, including playoff games and blitz tiebreak games, were given equal weight in the ratings.

5. Scores for Draws Depend on Team Result

In team chess, where the goal of the team is to win the match (with 2.5/4 points or more, or 2/4 in a match with draw odds), individual results can be skewed by the circumstances of the match situation. For example, if it looks like your team is about to win two games and lose one game, winning the match comes down to what happens on your board. Suppose that in your game you have a moderate advantage, but the position is dynamic and unstable. In such a case, you might decide to trade all your pieces to reach a dead drawn endgame, so that you will draw the game and clinch the match for your team. This is fundamentally a good result for your team, as your will win the match.

Therefore, the result of the team match is considered when assigning scores for individual players' draws. If the final team match is drawn, each player who drew gets 1/2 point. If a team wins, all the players on the winning team who drew their games get 2/3 point each. Conversely, all the players on a losing team who drew their games get 1/3 point each. (Wins are still 1 and losses are still 0, regardless of the team match score.) Note that these point assignments are only for rating calculations only.

Final 2007 United States Chess League Rating List

Every game in every season of the USCL was rated, not just 2007.

Only players who were played at least one game in 2007 (i.e., active) are included in the list.

Players must have played at least three games in the history of the USCL to be included in the list.

While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, re-rating might occur to correct any mistakes.

1

2591 Sergey Kudrin

2

2589 Vinay Bhat

3

2586 Patrick Wolff

4

2581 Larry Christiansen

5

2580 Hikaru Nakamura

6

2579 Jorge Sammour-Hasbun

7

2576 Joel Benjamin

8

2571 Drasko Boskovic

9

2569 Gregory Serper

10

2566 Julio Becerra

11

2543 Davorin Kuljasevic

12

2523 Jacek Stopa

13

2522 Eli Vovsha

14

2519 John Donaldson

15

2505 Pawel Blehm

16

2495 Josh Friedel

17

2494 Alex Stripunsky

18

2491 Lev Milman

19

2487 Georgi Orlov

20

2487 Dean Ippolito

21

2484 Pascal Charbonneau

22

2481 Eugene Perelshteyn

23

2477 Irina Krush

24

2466 Jay Bonin

25

2463 Vince McCambridge

26

2460 Bryan Smith

27

2454 Tegshsuren Enkhbat

28

2453 Dmitry Schneider

29

2449 Denis Shmelov

30

2441 Eric Tangborn

31

2440 Ron Burnett

32

2433 Marcel Milat

33

2432 Slava Mikhailuk

34

2428 Sam Shankland

35

2423 Oleg Zaikov

36

2415 John Bartholomew

37

2415 Robert Hess

38

2411 Richard Costigan

39

2407 Dmitry Zilberstein

40

2406 Jonathan Schroer

41

2405 Keaton Kiewra

42

2402 Irina Zenyuk

43

2399 William Kelleher

44

2397 Blas Lugo

45

2389 David Pruess

46

2389 Francisco Guadalupe II

47

2388 John Readey

48

2387 Andrei Zaremba

49

2386 Aviv Friedman

50

2382 Mikhail Zlotnikov

51

2381 Marcel Martinez

52

2380 Todd Andrews

53

2366 Parker Zhao

54

2365 Elvin Wilson

55

2361 Bruci Lopez

56

2360 Chris Williams

57

2358 Katerina Rohonyan

58

2354 Larry Kaufman

59

2354 Vadim Martirosov

60

2353 Daniel Yeager

61

2343 John Rouleau

62

2334 Mackenzie Molner

63

2333 Eric Rodriguez

64

2327 Bayaraa Zorigt

65

2322 Victor Shen

66

2319 Miguel Espino

67

2314 James Critelli

68

2311 Marc Arnold

69

2309 Michael Thaler

70

2307 Peter Bierkens

71

2304 Luis Barredo

72

2303 Loren Schmidt

73

2301 Evan Ju

74

2301 Gregory Young

75

2300 Matthew Herman

76

2297 Alejandro Moreno Roman

77

2295 Craig Jones

78

2287 Michael Lee

79

2279 John Timmel

80

2276 Ralph Zimmer

81

2265 Daniel Naroditsky

82

2264 Udayan Bapat

83

2263 Ilya Krasik

84

2261 Tsagaan Battsetseg

85

2258 Josh Sinanan

86

2239 Matthew Bengtson

87

2228 Peter Bereolos

88

2211 Jerry Wheeler

89

2209 Gerald Larson

90

2183 James Wu

NOTE: While the commissioner of the United States Chess League is aware of the existence of these ratings and the rating system, neither the ratings nor the rating system have been officially endorsed nor sanctioned by the Unites States Chess League, its affiliates, or sponsors.

2 comments:

Interesting system though I must say it wouldn't be near the top of my choices to use if we were going to modify the way we did it. While your system makes a lot of sense statistically, I really don't like any MVP type system which makes it completely impossible for the lower boards to be at the very top.

This is something I've argued with Greg about as well in our MVP system as it seems very unlikely for a Board 3 or Board 4 to ever win league MVP under our system either (which is the reason I made him change the Board 3 from 2 points to 2.5 points this year, but it's obviously still pretty unlikely for a Board 3 to win). To a point I think that's good, as the top superstars should generally be the ones to win an award of that sort, but certainly someone who goes like 9-1 on Board 4 probably is the most deserving person and yet they likely still wouldn't win (that score wouldn't have been enough to win this year anyway). Of course that's a matter of opinion as to whether they should, and my feeling that they should could have something to do with my personal prejudice since the Board 4 players are the league players closest to myself in strength (gotta stick up for the family!).

I'm assuming you're referring to the way of initial estimated ratings based on board played. I equated this with the initial assignment of rating by age in the USCF system. However, it will all work out in time as the players play one another. Note that this inital rating is done once, prior to the player's first USCL game.

That being said, I agree with you about the MVP scoring system being too biased toward to top boards, and I mentioned to Greg too -- I'm not sure what the solution is.

In any case, I'm not proposing the USCL rating system as a way of doing MVP voting or assessment, although I'm sure you could come up with ways of using it.